Center for Graphic and Visual Research – Sales Gallery

In the very heart of Belgrade, in 16 Paris Street, the Centre for Graphic Arts and Visual Research “Akademija“ has been functioning as an organizational unit of the Faculty of Fine Arts for a decade and half now.

The Centre for Graphic Arts, which was founded in 1995, is the first and the only highly professional institution of its kind in Serbia. Since it focuses on the preservation of graphic arts through its programs and diverse, complex activities, the Centre takes part in the development of graphic arts and shows what graphic arts represent today.

Not giving up its original mission to popularize this art medium and to preserve originality of prints, the Centre promotes the highest artistic and cultural values. It also supports high creative achievements, researches and experiments on the domestic and international art scenes in keeping with the spirit and need of the times.
In the Centre, which covers the area of 500m2 and consists of graphic arts workshop, gallery and sale space, offices and additional facilities, very dynamic publishing, exhibition and sale activities intertwine with programs of lectures, seminars and demonstrations.

Publishing

Publishing – specialized in editions of different renowned artists’ prints – takes place in well-equipped workshops where master printers apply all the traditional graphic art techniques: lithography, serigraphy, screen-printing, linocut etc. Carried out in small print runs, and affordable in terms of price, these graphics are available to all of those who love and appreciate graphic arts. Thanks to a team of professionals, graphic artists – print masters, and high standards in terms of printmaking, the Centre has become very quickly an important gathering place of artists who are interested in graphic arts. It has also provided some fundamental prerequisites for affirmation of innovative graphic art creations and initiation of a collection of graphic art creations by artists of all generations.
In the scope of its graphic art production, the Centre has released 170 prints created by local and foreign artists. Prints done by the most important authors of different generations display a wide range of individual creative poetics, a link between modern sensibilities with graphic art history. Some intimate, innovative creations, in terms of techniques, and concepts represent an enormous contribution to graphic art expression.
The Centre’s calendar, with an exclusive print run of 150 copies, is an interesting concept. It brings back dignity to that noble tradition of popularizing culture through an object of art. Namely, it is possible to remove the tabular array of the days and months at the beginning of a new year and to save the graphics as independent works of art. That is why this edition is so special and why it represents the hallmark of the Centre. Through the mechanisms of “counting time”, the Centre also wants to make graphic arts more accessible to an individual and to promote some recent phenomena within graphic art production.
The Centre’s collection of graphics has been initiated with the first prints created in its workshops. Today it is an important collection of contemporary graphics in Serbia. It contains over 800 works of art created either by the artists who have worked in the workshops or given to the Centre as gifts.

Exhibitions – Sales Gallery

A dozen of exhibitions, solo and group, on a theme or focused on a certain issue, take place in the gallery venue per year. A bilingual catalogue in Serbian and English, with illustrations and author texts written by art critics and historians, is an additional component to these exhibitions. These exhibition catalogues are not just testimonies of when and where an exhibition has taken place. They also represent a valuable resource for some future researches of our contemporary art scene.

And in this way, by organizing exhibitions of local and foreign artists, the Centre presents contemporary graphic art production. It also monitors carefully all the changes of expression under the influence of new technologies and new materials within graphic arts. Thus we have to point out several things. There is a certain shift in the research focus towards communication with other art media. Afterwards, graphic arts have entered the domain of installation and, finally, a dialogue with screen image and photography has been initiated.
Various series of lectures on artists and graphic art techniques, debates with artists, workshops for students and artists and promotions of author opuses are an integral part of the Centre’s programs. They represent an important factor in understanding not only visual arts, but also the modern world in general; as for audiences of all generations and different education backgrounds, so for artists, active curators and art historians.